The invention relates to a power-driven structure adapted for the attachment thereto of various known agricultural implements and for their translation across a field without danger of soil-compaction. It relates more particularly to a power-driven girder structure provided with transport means serving either to carry harvested agricultural products to one of the ends of the structure, there to be collected and transported out of the planted area, or to spread materials over the field.
Every operation in planted areas, such as the distribution of fertilizers or of chemicals, harvesting crops and their transport out of the area, is nowadays carried out by relatively heavy implements which are either self-propelled or trailed by agricultural tractors. These operations invariable lead to a compaction of the soil over which the implements travel, a fact which has been long recognized as detrimental to the soil as well as to the plants, reducing their yield. Various means have lately been devised with a view to avoiding the compaction of the soil as far as possible, such means including laying rail tracks, providing the tractors and other vehicles with extra wide tyres, or drawing the implements across the field by steel cables attached to stationary winches and the like located at opposite ends of each field, similar to the steam ploughs of the 19th century.
However, no system has been devised up to now whereby equipment can be moved across a field without its being in contact with the ground, but capable of carrying out practically all operations involved in the treatment of soil and plants, harvesting the crop, and transporting it to collecting points outside the planted area.
It is therefore, a main object of the invention to provide a structure which is supported as its two end portions of a planted area by self-propelled carriages.
It is a further object to provide this structure with means for translating various agricultural implements across a field without their contacting the ground. These implements, which serve, among other tasks, for the distribution of solid or liquid chemicals, for harvesting crops and their conveyance out of the planted area, and for removing stones, crop residues, and other particulate materials, from the area treated, area adapted for attachment to the structure of the invention, which in turn is adapted for such attachment.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide the structure with means adapted, on the one hand, to raising it to a sufficient height in order to enable it to be moved over the tops of fruit trees and other tall obstacles, and on the other hand to lowering it to within a small distance from the ground for loading the harvested agricultural products, particulate matter, etc., onto horizontal moving equipment integral with the structure of the invention, for the purpose of conveying them to vehicles and the like, which carry them out of the planted area.